


exam grade

by ConvenientAlias



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 01:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15450786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Wes did a bad job on the midterm. Annalise is concerned about his grade and his ability to keep his goddamn mouth shut.





	exam grade

“We need to talk.”

Lately, Wes lives waiting for those words. When he’s not talking to Annalise, his life is out of control. He tries to handle the others on his own—they know Annalise has their back now, so that’s good, but they’re bitter at him (or at least Michaela and Connor are) and while he wants to believe it’s all under control, really they could go to the police at any second. When he’s not with them, he’s with Rebecca, and keeping her handled is almost more exhausting. Keeping her from turning herself in as the killer she’s not. Keeping her sexual appetite satisfied. Keeping himself from suspecting her of murdering Lila, now that he’s already killed someone, _killed someone_ on her behalf.

The world tilts crazily, constantly, and he is always trying to control it. But when he talks to Annalise, at least, he’s not the one controlling it. She is, and he is just the horse in the yoke while she keeps the coach moving steady in the middle of the road.

“We need to talk.”

He blinks. He’d been happy to hear the words, and yet he’d drifted. “Of course.” He pastes on his good student face. They’re still in the classroom. He follows her to her office.

“Has something come up?” he asks quietly. Annalise is in the center of the investigation as none of the rest of them are; Annalise would know. She isn’t in the habit of telling him details that would just worry him but if it’s something that concerns him, she would. Or if there’s something he has to do. Maybe another way he has to keep the others handled.

He’s exhausted just thinking about it.

Annalise sighs. “Actually, Mr. Gibbins, something has come down.”

He frowns. “What?”

“Namely, your grade.”

The world tilts again, and Wes recalibrates. Oh. They’re talking about class. Not murder, not even one of the case files, but class.

Well, that’s nice. He’s not surprised his grade has gone down. He’s barely processed a thing in class in a week, and he doesn’t even remember what they covered today even though he knows he spoke up several times, probably making an idiot of himself. Nonetheless, he says, in the most concerned voice he can manage, “How bad is it? And…why?” Sure, stress has been getting to him, but up until the midterm he’d thought he’d been doing okay.

“You are almost failing. Only your extra credit’s saving you,” Annalise says bluntly. “As for why, you got an F on your midterm.” She digs it out of a file in her desk and hands it to him. A five page paper (that was all they’d been expected to write) and a big red F right there on the front page, Annalise’s flourishing handwriting hovering grandiose over his own neat pencil scratch.

“I gave that exam my all,” he says. And it’s true. He’d certainly sweated his way through it, and he knows Connor, Michaela and Laurel did the same. After it was over Michaela made a remark on how Annalise was torturing them and Laurel said that she just wanted to brainstorm some ideas just in case and Connor said what the hell, maybe she was just to lazy to write a fucking exam and plagiarized them instead. And Wes only shrugged. But they all gave it their all. He’d thought his own ideas were not so bad.

“You did not answer the prompt,” Annalise says. “I told you to find a defense that would cover all parties involved: the robber, the killer, and the two others involved. Your defense protected the robber and the bystanders and left nearly all blame on the killer. That is not an answer to my prompt.”

Wes licks his lips. “I…”

“Are you suicidal, Mr. Gibbins?” Oh, she’s pulling out the last name heavy guns again. Wes shudders. “Do you want to go to jail?”

“If anyone deserves to go down for this, it’s me. I killed him.” Wes clasps his hands. “And I’m sorry, and I did it to protect Rebecca, but…”

“First of all, we’re in a public setting, so lower your damn voice. Second, I don’t give a shit about your savior complex. You don’t get to play the Christ figure. And I’m glad I gave you this exam because if that’s where you’re at, if you’re thinking of turning yourself in…”

“I’m not!”

“…sacrificing yourself, taking one for the team, let me inform you as your lawyer and as your professor and as the woman whose husband you killed that I will not allow you to do that.” Annalise leans forward over her desk, elbows on the table. “If you let yourself go down I can promise you I will find some way to make Rebecca go down with you. And I don’t want to do either but you leave me no choice, Wes. I need to know you’re not going to act like a typical idiot client. Can you promise me that?”

Her gaze is always piercing, but Wes is getting perhaps a bit better at meeting it. Today it’s at least easier than it was when he met it over Sam’s body, the coolness in her eyes more terrifying, more compelling than the pool of blood at his feet. He swallows, forces himself back into the present. “I promise you. It was just an exam. I was stressed.” He shrugs.

“Well, your grade stands. For the question I asked it’s a terrible answer.” Annalise takes the paper back and puts it back in her file. “Yep, that’s an F. In the future, I expect better from you. Mr. Gibbins.” But she smiles just a little. Wryly.

Wes says, “Too bad I can’t turn in the trophy.”

Annalise snorts. “You’re not funny. Now get out of my office.”

He asks the others later what grade they got on the exam. Laurel and Asher are the only two with A’s. Connor and Michaela both got a B. He lies and says he got the same. If they get the idea he wavered for a minute, almost fell prey to his own self-destructive impulses, they’ll force him the rest of the way under. They’d love to pin it all on him.

Maybe it’s that knowledge more than anything else, more than Annalise’s mingled encouragement and threats, that keeps him quiet. He’d play a savior, sure, but not a scapegoat, and every time Connor gives him a heavy look he feels just a small twinge of spite. He’s not drowning to save them. He’s certainly not going to let Rebecca go down with him, not after what he’s done to keep her alive.

He’ll trust in Annalise. In the exam responses she has stored up in her office, a think tank’s worth of defenses. And, hopefully, in her ability to bury the evidence. It won’t come down to a trial. It won’t come down to the worst case scenario. They have to believe in that. Annalise has it all under control.

**Author's Note:**

> It's really late at night but all I can think about is How to Get Away With Murder so hear, have a real short fic, I'm going to bed.


End file.
